


Moth and Flame

by Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU-Marauder's Era, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Regency Romance, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:01:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe/pseuds/Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe
Summary: And really, Regulus Black’s breeches were far too tight to be having such thoughts.





	Moth and Flame

He saw the familiar shock of blond through the tangle of pearls and plumage that had nested on the parquet of the Countess of Privet’s ballroom.  A truly dreadful woman, but a lovely floor nonetheless.  Regulus would have know that hair anywhere.  The softness of the tangle of curls, the way a man’s hand could grasp at the short hairs at the neck and _tug_ just so.  Enough to turn a face.  Enough to bring the full lower lip closer to teeth and tongue.  To watch the bloom of arousal in brandy-colored eyes.

And really, Regulus Black’s breeches were far too tight to be having such thoughts.

It had been twelve years since he’d last seen hair or hide of Remus Lupin.  And he knew that if the man were to turn, to let his gaze fall on him, Regulus could not bear the look that would open there.  

So he turned away first, helping himself to a glass of something on offer, and slunk into the Faro rooms like the coward he was.

The coward he’d always been.

*

With the requisite heir and a spare, Regulus could take a more realistic view of his wife.  She was sharp as a whip, holding her own with her phaeton and cattle. Hard as a diamond.  Of the First Water, too.  No seconds for Regulus Black.  An exceptional woman with her _Do hurry, Reggie_ and the click of her door as they parted for the night.  

They had never pretended to love each other and so they had grown to respect each other.  To read and suit each other.  Cassiopeia satisfying her contract as broodmare and then returning home to her stable.  Which was really rather renowned.  Regulus having somehow stiffened enough to plant his seed in a woman and then returning to his club and playing with his ventures.  Which were also really rather renowned.  Everything he touched turned to gold.  

Everytime he had been consumed by Cassiopeia - she had always done the taking - he had thought about golden eyes and the scar Lupin had over his mouth.  On the right side where he had traced it with his tongue.  

And really, he was getting quite sentimental as he was falling into his cups.  Cassiopeia tapped the side of her glass from the tangle of _ton_ of which she ruled. A reminder that he was rather atrocious when stumbling away from sobriety.   _Do your duty_ , she had said as he’d helped her with the Black jewels, this time an exquisite collar of brilliant diamonds.  She trusted no one but Regulus with them.   _The servants steal, Reggie._

 _Dance with the Come-outs,_ she had commanded.   _And pretend to be social.  It would not do to keep the spotty ones unpartnered._  And then she said - as she had since reading that the Marauders had returned from the Continent, fresh from fighting Boney - _If you want to fuck him, I give you my blessing._  He had never once mentioned Lupin.  But Cassiopeia knew.  She knew everything.

They were inextricably tied, Regulus and Cassiopeia.  He wasn’t even sure if he could function without her anymore.

*

When the Earl of Black - Regulus’ brother - had bought a commission in the Foot Guards, their parents had summarily disowned him.  His affront was not particularly scandalous - the King’s sons had done the same - but Blacks did not _do_ that sort of thing.  

Particularly not while one was engaged to marry a Selwyn.

So Regulus had married Cassiopeia instead.  

As they were wont to do, Sirius’ friends followed suit.  Potter, whose family was shot through with _misalliances_ and wealth deep enough to fill the Thames a hundredfold, had gone first.   And then Pettigrew, whose friendship had always rankled as his Father had started as a barrister before being Knighted.  They were too _new_.  Lastly, there had been Lupin.  Removing himself from his ivory bower in Oxbridge to serve at the King’s pleasure.  

His efforts had garnered him a Dukedom.  For which Lupin now gained admittance to the dark, crushing Halls of the elite.   _Condolences._

And Regulus could not take his eyes off him, slowly inching closer as groups shifted and reconvened.  He was talking to Lady Peverell of the unfortunate red-hair.   _If I had hair that color, I would have the good sense to have a wig made up_ , Cassiopeia had said.   _But breeding will always show._  Peverell was gravid with child, another _faux pas_ , and Lupin was using his body to shield her while Potter danced attendance to her right.  It was too warm - Regulus was _too_ warm - and crowded, but the candlelight flickered over Lupin’s lashes and nose.  

Of course, like a moth to a flame, Regulus flickered near.

“Regulus,” Potter said, noticing him.  “I didn’t know you were here.”  There was not an ounce of rancor in the statement - although there was a line at his brow that spoke of displeasure - as he greeted him.

“Peverell,” Regulus said in his clipped tones, immediately offering a precise bow to his wife.  “Lady Peverell.”  And then he turned by the merest of degrees. “Lovell.”  Lupin’s title came easily, practiced for just this occasion, as he slowly, slowly raised his eyes.  

Lupin had never been able to hide anything.  Not to anyone who looked.  Not to Regulus.  He had read love and pleasure, surprise and disgust there.  Now there was simply amusement.  As if he knew Regulus had been crawling towards him the entire evening.

“Black.”  Lupin’s face was older, leaner.  And Regulus found the lines around Lupin’ eyes, the sharper face through the screen of his own mask.  He was dressed meticulously, no doubt Peverell’s doing, from starched cravat to perfectly fitted grey breeches and hose.  It was warm enough that Regulus could _smell_ the earthy cinnamon scent of him.

He wondered if Lupin’s mouth tasted of cinnamon.

“I hear congratulations are in order.”  He found himself saying, mouth and mind completely disjointed.  A useful thing, that.

A moment of confusion and then both Potter and Lupin laughed.  Potter as if he was in on some joke.  Lupin embarrassed.  “Er, thank you.”  There was a rise at the end, a question.  But as he enunciated the last, Regulus found that Lupin had caught him staring at his mouth.  He was almost drunk enough not to care.

_Almost._

“Sirius,” Potter said, waving the Earl over.  Where Regulus was tall and lithe, Sirius was small and leonine.  He cut through the crowd as if through tissue paper.  He was not happy to see his brother.

“Regulus.”  Sirius’ eyes - grey and wary - flickered towards Remus before staring Regulus straight in the face.  “To what do we owe this particular pleasure?”  His tongue popped the word _pleasure_ and turned it into something very much less than.  

“Sirius.”  There was so much feeling in the name that Regulus was temporarily blinded with his own embarrassment.  Sirius’ face softened, though, and Regulus thought he might have actually meant it.  A moment later, quite to everyone’s (and no one’s really) surprise, Sirius had enveloped his brother in a tight embrace that only emphasized the twenty or so pounds of muscle he’d managed to drag onto the Black frame.  “I’ve missed you.”  That was definitely the liquor, Regulus thought.  But his eyes were over Sirius’ shoulder, falling directly on Remus.  He had no idea who he was saying it to.  “ _I’ve missed you so much_.”

“ _I know_ ,” Sirius said into Regulus’ shoulder, quietly but firmly.  Regulus knew the quiet was for him.  And the firmness was Sirius.

All the while Lupin looked on through bright lashes.

“Such an inspiring reunion,” Privet said, appearing from nowhere, “But I’ve come to collect the man of the hour,” her eyes flickered to Remus, “As the Duke of York and Albany’s just arrived.”  Unfashionably early.  If the Prince Regent came, it would not be before the stroke of one.

“I should be going,” Regulus said, pulling his particular restraint around him.  

*

“ _Am I good enough to fuck now, Regulus_?”  Remus asked him, the barest _sotto voce_ in a noisy room.  He was standing just so.  In position so that no one knew they were conversing at all.  Regulus swallowed his champagne wrong, coughing.  He’d lost count of how many glasses he’d thrown down a parched throat.

It was asked without emotion, as if he were querying the time of day or discussing the weather.  

But sparks ran down the knot of his spine until tension pooled in his abdomen.  And lower.

Regulus smiled at McKinnon in her tacky watered silk and rubies.  He would have never paired the two.   _It is important that we practice restraint in our dress, love_ , Cassiopeia would have said.  A stricture that Regulus adhered to as if the gospel.

He had nothing to answer.  Twelve years ago, he had told Remus Lupin - now the Duke of Lovett, but then a weedy Vicar’s son - that he was too poor to carry on with.  He had actually said, _I can’t do this because you’re not_ good _enough._  Because people would _talk_.  Not because of their relationship (which was as discreet as Regulus and such things were not uncommon), but because it would have been a _scandal._  The Honorable Regulus Black could _not_ spent his time between the coltish legs of a Vicar’s son.  Whose mother had been in _trade_.   

There was a phantom flutter at his wrist, possibly imagined, and Remus had walked off.  He looked only when it was politic to do so.  Lupin had moved to the doors that led to the Privet’s portrait gallery.  

 _Make a decision, Reg_.  With the last swallow of his drink, he deposited it into the waiting hands of a servant.  Cassiopeia lifted her glass.   _Good luck, love_.  He had never said anything, but she knew.  She always knew.

 _Moth_.   _Flame_.

*

“I wondered if you would come,” Remus said, a tall figure traced in moonlight.  Whether for trysts or husbandry, the Privets did not light the halls. “It appears you have some courage.  Even if liquid.”  He arched a brow, the shadows obscuring his eyes.  Regulus needed to see them.  To read him.  

“ _Remus_.”  The Vicar’s son - the Duke - didn’t smile.  Not quite.  But Regulus knew that _he knew_ that he had him.  Remus had always had him.  He _would_ always have him.  But he daren’t step forward.  He could only beg.  He hadn’t earned anything more.  He didn’t deserve anything more.

Lupin sighed.  And then his long fingers, calloused and knotty from use, painted a line from Reg’s thighs to hips.  A forefinger crooking into the narrow space between his waistcoat and breeches, along the fine fabric of his shirt, just over his stomach.  He beckoned and Reg came.  Remus’ hot breath fanned over his face - port and cinnamon - as he brought rough palms to Reg’s cheeks and stared down into his face.  They stood like that for a long while.  Until Remus found something there - _was it what he was looking for?_ \- that seemed to satisfy him.

Lupin licked a path into Reg’s mouth, prising him open with hot breath and tongue, palms still against his face.  Reg was muzzy headed from drink, but knew to hold onto Remus as an anchor.  In the intervening years, Lupin had learned to kiss.  He had learned to plunder and map and lave.  To _have_.

Reg used Lupin’s lean hips for support, smooth hands against the grey silk of his breeches, curling where the sharp bones of his hips opened to flesh.  He was holding on for dear life, unsure if he would hold fast or be shaken loose.

With the tilt of his head, Remus moved against the bristly line of his jaw, and then bit the skin beneath his right ear.  A sharp pain eased by the balm of his mouth. Peeling his left hand back - his dominant hand - Remus sprung the knob behind him, nearly falling into Privet’s library.  Reg hadn’t even noticed the door.  But he did when Remus pulled him past, moving to turn the key in the lock.

Wordlessly, Remus unravelled the ties of his breeches, rucking them to his knees.  His eyes commanding.  Because Lupin had learned how to command.  Reg swallowed him as Remus sat on the chaise lounge that Lady Privet embroidered on, keeping Lord Privet company while he pretended to do figures for property he knew nothing about.  He hadn’t done such a thing in twelve years.  Because there was only one.  Only one.

Remus’ fingers tangled in his hair, disordering the careful coiffure he’d spent hours on.  It was wicked.  It was exquisite.  Remus’ prick was wet and hard in his mouth, slick with spittle.  It dribbled down the darker stuff that nested his sex, over the tight sac of his testes, and down the line to his anus.  Above him, Remus was quiet - but far from still - his hips moving although he attempted to not thrust into Reg’s mouth.  

“ _Reg_ ,” Remus gave a warning only moments before he came, Reg swallowing everything.  

After a moment, Remus had unstrung Reg and palmed his cock.  The rough fingers were unbelievably gentle, rolling the head of his cock in the foreskin before peeling it back.  Reg wondered if this was how Remus touched himself, forefinger and thumb vibrating against the skin beneath the head.  It was a quick thing.  With a shutter and a gasp - loud in the empty room - Reg was coming.  The force of it strong enough that the painted ceiling had become the night sky.  Unsure if it was that good or whether it was the alcohol.  He hadn’t been touched in ages.  Years.  And semen pooled on his stomach.  The line of hair on his abdomen sticky with it.  

Remus came to his left elbow on the rug beside Reg, moonlight slanting across his eyes.  The look was so raw that Reg could feel tears prickling.  “ _I love you_ ,” Reg said.  Because he’d never said it.  Not out loud.  Not to Remus.  

“I know,” Remus conceded.  A loaded moment passed where neither spoke.  “I know what you did for us.  For England.”  

“How?”

“Because I was in _service_ to my King.”  And Remus smiled.  Wryly.  Reg looked up at his mouth, the scar just above the right side.  It had ruined the chance for an even smile.  But it was perfect as it was.  “You saved my life.  And Potter’s, too, though he’ll never admit it.  But you didn’t know that.”

“No, I didn’t.”  Reg brought his hand up to Remus’ mouth, tracing the scar.  “I _could have lost you_.”

“Is it so hard to be decent?”

Reg valued his anonymity.  Only Cassiopeia knew.  He hid nothing, well, _almost_ nothing from her.  “I am out of practice.”

“Yes, I noticed that.”  Remus did laugh then, a warm thing that huffed against Reg’s face.  “So did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time, Reg.”

“I know.”  A sigh.  “ _So have I_.”

“So you’ll Summer at Lovett Hall.”  Remus commanded.  “And be _polite_ to Jamie.”  The Peverell estate was a ruin in the absence of first Fleamont and then James.  And Lady Potter had to have a suitable place to drop Potter the Younger.  And for reasons Reg could not understand, Remus found her enormously amusing.

“And then to Florence,” Reg added with relief.  A decade ago - after Remus had forgiven him in one of their letters, all burnt after reading - Reg had started preparing.  An estate in Tuscany.  Decorated by Cassiopeia, who had an excellent eye for such things, but deplored the weather for her complexion.  A large, bright library for Remus.  And a brocade settee where Reg could watch him.  No one would question the migratory habits of a gentleman with an heir and a spare.

Or the Duke of Lovett.  Although _he_ would have to keep a low profile, owing to his place as a nine day wonder.

“Well, I certainly cannot go out like _this_ ,” Reg said, peeling his shirt off his chest.  “They’ll think I slipped out to visit a brothel.”

“It was inopportune to follow.”

“But not to lead?”

An unspoken _touché_.  “Then come to mine,” Remus said, easily rolling up like he was a teenager and helping Reg up.  “I’ll make our farewells and meet your hack.”

“But aren’t you at Grimmauld?”

“Sirius doesn’t bite, Reg.”  A cloud of thought and then, “Though your ancestors might.”

*

_“My God, Reg.  If you’re going to stalk us at least keep up.”_

_“You know he's only come to trail after Moony.”  Potter was always unpleasant and Sirius only encouraged it.  Reg had no idea where Potter’s came from, but he understood Sirius’ rancor.  They all laughed.  Except Moony, who never laughed._

_“I wish you would stop teasing,” he said instead, a sideways glance towards Reg._

_“I wish you would stop_ encouraging _it.”  But Sirius didn’t really think Remus did.  Not really.  And Reg always waited when it was brought up.  Anxious for_ something. _To change or to grow._

_Pettigrew had found a stick somewhere and was cracking it against the ancient oaks, splintering bark like buckshot.  “Oh let him be.”  He always supported Moony. Neither were artifacts of generations of breeding.  Pettigrew a Barrister’s son and Remus a Vicar’s.  Remus permitted due to his growing up nearby and Pettigrew due to his Father’s importance in Commons.  “Moony can’t help that he’s so pretty.”_

_“Oh yes,” Lupin laughed.  “So uncommonly pretty.”  Reg knew that he thought he was unattractive due to his scars.  But Reg was not capable of objectivity.  He adored Remus far too much.  The three boys laughed, Pettigrew slapping Sirius on the arse with his stick.  War had been called and they scattered for weapons and the high ground.  “It is obvious that the molding abilities of College are greatly overrated,” Remus said to Reg, not making any move to join them._

_“Aren't you going to join them?”  Reg asked, barely able to suppress the hopefulness in his voice._

_“I’ve already torn my trousers,” Remus said remorsefully.  “I’m not about to go home with blood on my shirt as well.”  The Marauders were rough and tumble boys - on the cusp of manhood, though - and no one escaped unscathed when they were in a mood.  “But you can.  You don’t have to stay on my account.”  He revealed a Quarto of Pliny’s Natural History from his back pocket.  In Latin.  “I’ve ways of amusing myself.”_

_“It’s too nice to read, Remus.”  Reg never called him Moony.  The Marauders called him that because they thought Reg mooned after him.  Remus took it in good humor, although it was obvious that he hated it._

_“Oh?”  It was warm, the sweet smell of trees and plants around them.  Remus swatted at a fly and Reg watched his face from beneath his lashes._

_“Yes.  Let me show you the_ rosa alba _."  Reg loved the roses, wild and overgrown, the sweet smell.  Remus, who had traipsed through the Black estate with impunity born of stealth, knew the roses.  But Reg didn't care._

_A moment’s thought and then, “Alright.”_

_Lupin had hoisted him up from the embankment of the over flooded creek on the Black property.  The rest of the Marauders already cresting the hill fading into distant echoes and incoherent voice._

_They were scratched and warm when they got there, but the trees thinned and the sky was clear and blue.  Remus, gangly and sharp as he was, fell onto his back with his left hand shielding his eyes.  Reg joined him, far more careful of his clothes, his own eyes closed.  He could smell the musk of Remus’ body and the mint they’d all stolen from the cook’s garden.  “I’m sorry they always tease you,” Remus said.  “We’re a fraternity of dull-smiths.”_

_“I don’t mind,” Reg said.  “Because it’s true.”  He couldn’t bring himself to even look at Remus._

_Remus came up upon his left forearm, grass in his tangled blond hair.  His body shaded Reg’s face.  “That we’re dull-smiths?”  There was still a smile in his eyes, his mouth crooked._

_“That you’re beautiful.”  There was genuine surprise in Remus’ eyes._

_“You’re serious?”_

_“I’m Regulus.  And I would like very much if you would kiss me.”  Reg knew he was smaller and slenderer than his brother or his friends.  But he had his Father’s dark hair and the Black eyes: blue and ringed with quite annoyingly long lashes.  Remus watched him so long that he started to grow nervous and then Lupin was a hair’s breadth from his mouth._

_It was a very poor thing.  Reg’s tongue got away from him and Remus pulled back with a look of consternation.  Reg’s heart throbbed.  “I’ve never been kissed before_ ,” _Remus said, touching his lips._ “ _I didn’t realize it had quite so much teeth_.” 

_“I may have botched it_.”

_Remus laughed, but it wasn’t unkind.  “I like you best of all, Regulus Black.”  And it made Reg soar.  To be chosen.  To be seen beyond the Heir.  To be seen by Remus Lupin._

_They shared lazy kisses behind the rose bushes for ages, neither knowing what else to do.  At some point Reg had Remus under him and he felt the firm thing that was his prick against the older boy’s leg.  It startled Reg and they came apart.  Although Reg reached for Lupin’s hand, getting hold of his thumb, and squeezing it._

_Afterward, when they were starving - and no doubt being sought by the others - Remus took them to the pond and they dipped their mouths in the icy water.  Reg could feel the sting of it against his swollen lips._

_They couldn’t stop looking at each other._

_They knew enough to hide it from the Marauders, though.  If nothing else, Sirius would kill them._

_*_

_At College, Reg was Lupin’s_ Favorite.  

 _“I can’t do it because I’m his brother,” Sirius said.  Potter vacillated because he hated Reg.  And Pettigrew was already protecting a first year who was some sort of a cousin._ “ _It has to be you, Moony.” Sirius assigned in the dictatorial way he had._

_So they spent lazy afternoons (Sirius-sanctioned lazy afternoons) in Remus’ bed.  He had his own, having become a Prefect.  Drawer-less and fumbling when they should have been studying.  But Reg was clever and Remus for Oxbridge.  And if anyone suspected, they never said.  If Sirius knew, he never said.  Sirius, under the courtesy of Baron Grimmauld, would glower and threaten anyone who preyed on his own._

_“I want to be with you forever,” Reg said after he’d inched out of the flushed ring of Lupin’s arse, content and pleased that his leavings remained.  His.  He was still hard and they’d try again soon._

_Remus’ fingers had been in his hair, warm and calming.  “I would never have taken you for a dreamer.”  He used his Prefect voice.  Teaching, stating fact._

_“After school, of course.”  Because there were expectations to satisfy, but Sirius was the Heir.  And there was no way he_ wasn’t _going to get an heir himself at the rate he was going.  And … there were places - places Reg had heard about - where two men could live circumspectly as lovers.  But not in England._

 _Remus hummed in the way he did that signified consideration.  Reg knew all the vocalizations of his mind.  “We’ll see,” he said.  But later, he whispered against Reg’s throat,_ I love you.

 _Reg ventured only_ ditto  _in the small hours of the night, moonlight falling over where he clutched, dearly, to Remus’ hip._

*

 _“How could you have done it?”  Reg raged, flushed and angry and near tears.  “How could you have done this_ to me _?”  But reasoning with Sirius was… unreasonable.  He was a bulwark of bravado and dumb courage.  And Reg thought he hated himself.  If just a little._

_“I didn’t do it to you.  I did it for me.”  Sirius had taken rooms in London, capable of obtaining anything he needed on expectation.  He was disowned, but he was still the future Earl of Black.  “I can’t go back there.  I won’t.  I want to earn my mettle.”_

_“What about me?”  Reg reiterated, hand through his cropped hair._

_A light kindled then behind Sirius’ laughing eyes.  He was always laughing.  Everything was a game.  Because he had leverage.  Reg did not.  He never did.  “It’s true.”  No question, just the blunt edge of Sirius’ tongue.  “And you were comfortable with bringing him down with you?  Into comfortable sodomy, no doubt.  It wouldn’t be your name that was smeared.”_

_“I would never do that.”_

_“Wouldn’t you?”  Sirius’ cheroot smoked on a saucer.  “You_ know _what people would say.”  Sirius said the word quietly, with feeling. “Goddammit, Reg, you can’t in good conscience do that.  Not if you care for him.”_

_Reg was, understandably, distraught._

_“Just end it.  For Moony’s sake.”_

_*_

I didn’t mean it, _Reg wrote in perfect copperplate.  Honed from years of a switch to his knuckles and hours making out invitations._ My feelings for you will never change. Never _.  He underlined the last.  Reg would never have deigned to put it in ink, so baldly.  But he was desperate._

 _Lupin wrote back._ R -- I burned your letter -- as you asked.  I know you will do what must be done.  Your honor is, as ever, unimpeachable.  I would never ask of you otherwise.  They are headed to the Peninsula tomorrow.  Siri and Petty in good spirits.  Potter glum for leaving Evans.  I will miss them, but I’m bound for _other things_.  I miss you.  I love you.  And God help me, _Im girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.*_ \-- Yours, R

Flames are never doused completely.

**Author's Note:**

> * We go into the circle by night, consumed by fire.
> 
> Too much Mr Robot soundtrack: _The Moth_ , Les Deux Love Orchestra.


End file.
